Books: Widows write poetry anthology of love, longing

Sunday

Mar 2, 2014 at 10:48 AMMar 2, 2014 at 10:48 AM

By Chris BergeronDaily News staff

Bound by shared loss, they have written of their spouses’ deaths and lives in intimate poems of aching sorrow, comforting humor and loving remembrance.More than 80 women from across the country who have lost partners have contributed several poems each to "The Widows’ Handbook,’’ a first-of-its kind anthology that celebrates the power of poetry to share feelings, provide comfort and overcome despair.Several area women contributed poems that expressed their grief, survival strategies and hard-earned wisdom in singular voices.Gail Gilliland, of Natick, culled her poems from journals dating to the unexpected death her husband of 34 years in 2006 but didn’t see their possibility as poetry until four years later.She recalled, "I poured everything I was thinking about being a widow into that journal.’’"To begin, my audience was totally myself. My journals were like a depository of feelings and fears I’d never had in my life,’’ she said.The author of an acclaimed collection of short stories, "The Demon of Longing,’’ Gilliland familiarized herself with major poets including Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin and considered different sonnet forms before "feeling free to break free’’ to forge her own style and voice. Taken from an ongoing series, her four poems in this anthology combine sharp, ironic observation with heartfelt longing. Each one’s title begins, "The Widow…’’In "The Widow Takes Delivery of His Ashes on Beacon Hill,’’ she writes with piercing, sometimes painful honesty: "… I’m scared as hell. I don’t know where you are / Why you don’t walk down the hall / Wearing your old blue sweater with the leather sleeves / And sit down across from me as I try to read.’’Co-editors Jacqueline Lapidus and Lise Menn said they chose "good poems and eloquent prose poems that stood up as art.’’Subtitled "Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival,’’ the handbook features poems by 88 women, including Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg."We chose them because we felt they told the truth from and about the writer’s heart, either directly or allusively, and because they told that truth in a way that felt like poetry,’’ the editors wrote in the introduction.A Boston-based editor, teacher and translator, Lapidus has published numerous poems in periodicals and anthologies and in three collections of her work. Her significant other died suddenly in 2004. A professor emerita of linguistics at University of Colorado, Menn has written or co-authors seven books and numerous articles. Her second husband died of cancer in 2006.After putting out a call from submissions in several poetry journals and websites, Lapidus and Menn received more than 500 submissions from widows of all ages, straight and gay, legally married or not.They have organized the anthology into four thematic sections: "Bereft, Mourning;" "Memories, Ghosts, Dreams;" "Coping (More or Less);" and "A Different Life."An experienced writer in other forms, Ellen Steinbaum discovered only poetry let her express herself truly after her husband of 33 years died following a 10-month battle with colon cancer.The Cambridge resident described her poems about her husband, Carl Steinbaum who died in 1996, as "an act of remembrance.’’"I needed to write in a way I couldn’t do with prose,’’ said the Cambridge resident who previously wrote newspaper columns and magazine articles and presently writes a blog."In the early writing about Carl’s illness, I was probably writing to express myself and examine my own life,’’ she said. "The rewriting allows it to be re-crafted to speak to someone else.’’Steinbaum submitted poems to the anthology because "It’s useful for others to read about a painful experience from someone who’s been there.’’"There are two sides to this. I’m writing a poem and hoping it doesn’t end there,’’ she said. "The important thing is the reader has to allow herself to be touched by it. Since we’ve been through the same experience that makes it easier to happen. I’m grateful when someone tells me a poem of mine has touched them.’’In technically sophisticated poems like "Birthday,’’ Steinbaum speaks to her husband as an intimate presence in her life, yet frozen in time by his passing, and unable to age with her.She wrote: "You will not grow old / or stooped or slowed. / Caught in crystal time / you wait / while I wear out, / while my body / imperceptibly accumulates / the weight of passing days / that we will spend apart.’’After her husband of 49 years died from injuries sustained while bicycling, Holly Zeeb wrote poetry as "a way of channeling my deepest feelings and not descending into helpless grief.’’A psychologist from Newtonville, who’d published a chapbook about her mother’s final years, she had written poetry for 30 years and considered it "a natural form of expression.’’After her husband, Robert Zeeb, died in 2009, she wrote poems "to express the grief and to see that I could still create after this terrible loss."Zeeb said her poems "came completely out of the blue, sometimes from a flash of memory or something that reminded me of his loss.’’"I was doing it for Bob and myself. It was terribly helpful,’’ she said. "The act of writing a poem, of finding the right word was very helpful. I was feeling Bob’s loss very intently and I’m sure the passion to find the exact right language was very therapeutic.’’In poems like "Cold Tea,’’ Zeeb fuses memories of familiar moments with her husband with the persistent ache of his absence."Chamomile, solace of insomnia / … soothes my early waking / from dreams of you. There on your side / of the bed / a pile of books / to weigh it down … / What do I care about the world / these days? I do, I do But how / To find my way beyond your mind, / the steadfast heart of you?’’Chris Bergeron is a Daily News staff writer. Contact him at cbergeron@wickedlocal.com or 508-626-4448. Follow us on Twitter @WickedLocalArts and on Facebook.